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Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Delancey by Molly Wizenberg

Delancey: A Man, a Woman, a Restaurant, a Marriage, by Molly Wizenberg, author of A Homemade Life, was great! This was exactly the memoir I needed to bust a mini-slump in June after I read and loved Ruby, by Cynthia Bond. Molly Wizenberg is the successful blogger-turned-author behind Orangette, and this book chronicles the growth of her marriage around the opening of her husband's up-scale pizza restaurant, Delancey. Wizenberg is hesitant, in the beginning of this foray, to even admit that the restaurant will come to fruition. Her husband has a habit of picking up and dropping hobbies, and she imagines the restaurant idea is just another hobby. Pretty soon he's neck-deep in pizza dough recipes, renovating a storefront, and IT'S HAPPENING. And Wizenberg has to come to terms with it all. Besides being a fun read for foodies, this book is also pretty brave. Her husband knew that she struggled with the restaurant idea, but to put that struggle out for the world to read is another level of trust! There were a number of things I enjoyed about this book:

The warm, sitting-with-a-friend-talking writing style

The in-depth exploration of what makes a successful pizza....from dough to toppings

The struggle to hire/fire and settle a staff

Getting a peek behind the scenes of a memoirist as she struggles to write and publish her first book (which was going on while they were opening the restaurant)

A general look at the way opening a restaurant works! A lot of hard work and more than a pinch of luck.

Even if you don't consider yourself a "foodie," Delancey is a great book. It deals with one of the most loved foods--pizza!--and the people you'll meet in this book are interesting and down-to-earth. This is definitely a quick, fun non-fiction read.

Pub Date: May 2014

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Format: ARC

ISBN: 9781451655094

Source: I received this book from the publisher in exchange for consideration of a review (an honest one!). A video review!

I loved this book! I was surprised with how honest she was even when it made her not look so great. I'm not sure I would've been able to do that! I craved pizza for weeks after this book. Great video review!

Me too, Katherine! I don't know if I would've been able to lay my frustrations and disbelief so bare either. Though I suspect the passing of time probably helped come to grips with that. I started looking up Delancey and Essex on Yelp when I finished the book. I want to go!

I religiously read the blog Amateur Gourmet (strange because I am THE pickiest eater, but I love his writing style), and he wrote about this book and its gorgeous cover. Even though I'm not a foodie, I really enjoy foodie books. I know. I'm weird. Thanks for the great review!

this is definitely on my reading list for the summer. it might be an e-read for me (I do still read a lot of "real" books) but your review makes me want to read it even more than I did - I didn't realize there was a heavy memoir component to it!